Saturday, 16 February 2013

Beware of the child-catcher!

I have emailed the picture of me as the child-catcher to various friends and relatives and great amusement it has caused too! The humour was not at first obvious, because of course everybody knows that I was a fanatical home educator, constantly advising people to remove their children from school. I still am like that, actually. As a consequence, I have had to explain to those to whom I sent the image, that there exists a body of people who believe that I want to force children not currently at school into being taken to such institutions.

This is where the humour lies and once I explained this, the grotesqueness of the situation became apparent and was much appreciated. Every time anybody I know has moaned about not getting their child into the desired school, you see, I at once ask why on earth they want to send them in the first place. When a colleague or friend complains that the school will not let their child take a particular combination of subjects for GCSE, I tell them that they would be better off doing the job themselves, rather than letting the school muck them about.

Anyway, this image has certainly provided a good deal of innocent amusement among those who know me. I am sorry to report that the general opinion is that anybody who thinks that I like schools and want to make children go there, must be raving mad. This is of course quite true, but I can assure readers that I did my best to defend them and explain that although they were indeed practically insane to believe such nonsense, they were at least well meaning. In the next week or so, I hope to explore this strange idea that I wish children to be sent to school. It is a marvellous myth and the way that it has grown up among some of the less well balanced and psychologically robust readers of this blog is worth looking at in detail; if only for the light it sheds upon certain types of disordered and faulty thinking.

19 comments:

As school is invariably the outcome if an LA decides a child is not receiving a suitable education at home, they may not be so far from the truth whatever your personal preferences, since you are encouraging greater involvement and control by local authorities. Why should local authorities waste money supporting a family at home when they have already provided schools?

To many, LA involvement in their child's education would be considered at least as bad as a school, if not worse, anyway, so the distinction is moot.

Simon said,"This is of course complete nonsense. Prosecutions for not adhering to School Attendance Orders are rarer than rocking-horse shit. Take a look at the various Freedom of Information requests about this."

I know - I didn't claim that people were prosecuted, where did that come from? If you take a look at the Freedom of Information requests, you'll see that the majority of those issued with an SAO capitulate before the SAO is taken to court and send their child to school. Often the SAO is not even needed; just the threat of one is enough.

Simon said,"'To many, LA involvement in their child's education would be considered at least as bad as a school'

More research needed on this claim."

So are you suggesting that people welcome LA intervention/interference? Where's your evidence for this? I would expect people to voluntarily register with the LA if they wanted help from them. From the people I’ve spoken to, a person coming into your home and directing your child’s education individually is worse than the child going out to school as 1 of 30 in a class. But maybe you mix with a different group of home educators who welcome LA staff in with open arms and who want direction.

"I didn't claim that people were prosecuted, where did that come from?" Simon has difficulty distinguishing what he thinks is real from what is real. Apparently. It's not so much sloppy thinking as not thinking.

'"I didn't claim that people were prosecuted, where did that come from?" Simon has difficulty distinguishing what he thinks is real from what is real. Apparently. It's not so much sloppy thinking as not thinking.'

I think that part of the problem here is that people commenting say some utterly foolish things and when I try to unravel what they are saying, then I am compelled to use a certain amount of guesswork. In this particular instance, the statement was made that:

' school is invariably the outcome if an LA decides a child is not receiving a suitable education at home,'

This is patently absurd; it is not at all the case that this is invariably the outcome. Sometimes, the local authority will turn a blind eye to the situation, even after deciding that the child is not receiving a suitable education at home. On other occasions, a School Attendance Order might be issued, the parent prosecuted and the court rule that a suitable edcuation is being provided, despite what the local authority thinks. It also happens that the local authority officer will warn the parent, who then makes more of an effort with the education, bringing it up to what the local authority sees as a suitable standard.

All this being the case, I have to work out what the writer of this comment actually meant to say. She obviously does not really think or believe that school is invariably the outcome if an LA decides a child is not receiving a suitable education at home. Anybody involved at all with home education would know that this is not so. I thought that she might possible be referring then to prosecutions for breaching SAOs and commented accordingly.

It would help if those commenting here thought a little about what they were saying, so that we do not have to use quite so much guesswork to decipher their meaning. Perhaps the person who made this comment could tell me what she or he really meant to convey by the statement that, 'school is invariably the outcome if an LA decides a child is not receiving a suitable education at home'; as the words are obviously not meant to be taken at face value.

Simon said,“I have to work out what the writer of this comment actually meant to say.”

You could try asking instead of leaping to false conclusions based on little or no evidence. Just a suggestion.

Simon said,“Perhaps the person who made this comment could tell me what she or he really meant to convey by the statement that, 'school is invariably the outcome if an LA decides a child is not receiving a suitable education at home'; as the words are obviously not meant to be taken at face value.”

Well I did attempt to clarify your misunderstanding about prosecutions in my last reply and I can’t really make it any plainer. I wrote what I actually intended to write in plain English. I’m not sure why you assumed I hadn’t or why you needed to invent different intentions or meanings for my words.

In my experience, if an LA decides a family is not providing a suitable education at home, the child invariably ends up in school. I’m not sure why you assumed I meant this involved prosecutions or anything else. This may be a local phenomenon or it may reflect the limited experience of a single person, but you mentioned the FOI request results yourself so you must also have seen the examples where LAs describe SAOs being raised or threatened and children being returned to school as a consequence.

Simon said,“Sometimes, the local authority will turn a blind eye to the situation, even after deciding that the child is not receiving a suitable education at home.”

Presumably something that varies from area to area.

Simon said,“On other occasions, a School Attendance Order might be issued, the parent prosecuted and the court rule that a suitable edcuation is being provided,”

How many times has this happened, once, twice? I’ve only heard of one instance.

Simon said,“It also happens that the local authority officer will warn the parent, who then makes more of an effort with the education, bringing it up to what the local authority sees as a suitable standard.”

As others have pointed out, this may be experienced as being as bad or worse than sending their child to school by some families.

Simon said,“as the words are obviously not meant to be taken at face value.”

They were. They were based on personal experience over the years and on various FOI requests. You may have had different experiences, but that doesn't discount mine.

"Trouble is the Man says we can’t get jobs until we’re sixteen so we can’t get money to do what we want".

This paragraph really jumped out at me. Could we not offer guidance, support, help and ideas as to how he could perhaps make some money. Just because you can't get a job shouldn't dissuade you from attempting to make money if this is your aim. Maybe selling some advertising space on his blog, "click-through" links or banners. Maybe link him to a Google search on teenage entrepreneurs and show him that if you have dedication and commitment, you can actually make money without worrying about "the Man". This may be the touchy-feely "it takes a village to raise a child" approach but if we can find a way to assist this young man, surely we should or is it just another form of unwanted interference?

"This may be the touchy-feely "it takes a village to raise a child" approach but if we can find a way to assist this young man, surely we should or is it just another form of unwanted interference?"

Interference is something that hinders, obstructs, or impedes, so unless you force him to read the information against his will and this impedes or obstructs him from doing something else he would rather be doing, I can't see a comment on a blog pointing out interesting information that he is free to ignore can be classed as interference. Now, if this 'help' came from someone with the authority to make life difficult for him if he does decide to ignore it, like maybe an LA inspector, now that could be called unwanted interference. It depends on how and why the information is given I suppose.

'It is a marvellous myth and the way that it has grown up among some of the less well balanced and psychologically robust readers of this blog is worth looking at in detail; if only for the light it sheds upon certain types of disordered and faulty thinking. '

'I wrote what I actually intended to write in plain English. I’m not sure why you assumed I hadn’t or why you needed to invent different intentions or meanings for my words.'

Because you wrote, 'school is invariably the outcome if an LA decides a child is not receiving a suitable education at home,'

You did not qualify or restrict the statement in any way. Since it is not true that in every single case, in every local authority, school is the outcome if a local authority decides a child is not receiving a suitable education at home, then you obviously meant something different by the words. You were not using the word 'invariably' to mean in every case or always.

In the event, you have now explained that you really mean in most cases of which you are aware, particularly in your own local authority. You will readily understand why I found this sweeping generalisation a little puzzling and had to try and work out what you were actually claiming.

'Simon said,“Sometimes, the local authority will turn a blind eye to the situation, even after deciding that the child is not receiving a suitable education at home.”

Presumably something that varies from area to area.'

Yes, which is why it is not 'invariably' the case.

'Simon said,“It also happens that the local authority officer will warn the parent, who then makes more of an effort with the education, bringing it up to what the local authority sees as a suitable standard.”

As others have pointed out, this may be experienced as being as bad or worse than sending their child to school by some families.'

That has nothing to do with the case. That it does happen and that you are aware of it happening, means that it is not invariably the case that school is the result of a local authority deciding that a suitable education is not being provided at home.

True, I should probably have qualified the statement by including, 'in my experience'; I though I had.

As to already knowing (you last comment), I was referring to comments made after mine.

The main point I'm trying to make is that the increased interference by the state that you seem to be recommending as a solution is more likely to result in children returning to school than being helped at home. The department of education are on record as stating that they believe school is the best place for children to receive an education, so it's highly unlikely that limited funds are going to spent on enabling children to stay out of school.

What I am not quite clear on is this - if Jack had always been home educated and had arrived at the age of 14 barely literate and numerate, would you be arguing for home education to continue? I doubt it. This boy has been in state education and at the age of fourteen has emerged barely literate and numerate. What is the logical basis for preferring any kind of state involvement in his education from this point? The state has already had 11 years in which to teach him literacy and numeracy and failed spectacularly. Being left to his own devices could hardly be any worse and may even be considerably beter. Plenty of children acquire literacy and numeracy through computer games. At this point the state should admit it has failed and have the good grace and good sense to butt out. Unless it has an offer of compensation for the boy...?

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